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Monday, January 14, 2013

Jack Lewis: Wall Street "Fat Cat" and Revolving Door Lobbyist!

Jack Lew, President Obama's nominee for treasury secretary, is a revolving-door K Streeter and Wall Streeter who pocketed a near-million-dollar bonus from Citibank three months after taxpayers bailed out the failed financial titan.

Obama has spent years denigrating revolving-door lobbyists and "fat cats" from Wall Street, yet he has populated his administration with them.

Lew was a Democratic congressional staffer in the 1980s, eventually becoming senior policy adviser to House Speaker Tip O'Neill and executive director of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. When O'Neill retired after the 1986 election, Lew cashed out on K Street.

Lew became a partner at Van Ness Feldman, where he specialized "in energy and regulatory law," according to a New York Times article at the time. Back then lobbyists and lobbying firms did not need to register as such, but Van Ness Feldman's focus was mainly Capitol Hill: It was founded by four Democratic congressional aides, and National Journal reported at the time that "lobbying accounts for nearly half the firm's work."

With Bill Clinton's election in 1992, Lew passed back through the revolving door, serving eight years in the White House, including a stint from 1998 to 2001 as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

After that, Lew spent a few years as an administrator at New York University before going to Wall Street.

In June 2006, Lew joined Citigroup, one of the five largest banks in America, where he worked under fellow Clinton alumnus Robert Rubin. In January 2008, Lew became chief operating officer of Citi Alternative Investments.

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